Stuck in a sparse gnome

[Theen]

I'm following the freebsd handbook (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/x11-wm.html), and I've gotten myself stuck at 5.7.1.

I've tried installing the package and installing from the source (and had to reinstall freebsd each time), but when I type: # startx I get the screen below (sorry its so small.) The mouse works and I can click the icon in the bottom right to bring up a shutdown and a restart button, but on clicking, the menu disappears and nothing happens.

I can access the accessibility menu but clicking anywhere else does nothing. Pressing CTRL+ALT+BKSP doesn't do anything either. I've tried Alt+F1 but nothing happens then either.

I added gdm_enable="YES" to rc.conf, so gnome loads at start up and thus I'm stuck.

Is it obvious what I've done wrong?

[SirDice]

Proc isn't mounted. Add to /etc/fstab:

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0

[sdemsc]

Proc isn't mounted. Add to /etc/fstab:

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0




Thank you so much.worked for me.i am new to freebsd

[hrsetrdr]

Ah, I got the same thing as Theen, and did edit /etc/fstab to include /proc, but upon reboot am getting a message saying:

Mounting /etc/fstab filesystems failed, startup aborted...enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh

This install from FreeBSD-8.1-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso. I hadn't used fbsd since v. 7.0, with which I only needed to do as mentioned in the installing gnome (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/x11-wm.html) section of the handbook.

Any advice on fixing this will be most appreciated.

[wblock@]

Ah, I got the same thing as Theen, and did edit /etc/fstab to include /proc, but upon reboot am getting a message saying:

Mounting /etc/fstab filesystems failed, startup aborted...enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh

Any advice on fixing this will be most appreciated.

It would help to see what you have in there now, but you should be able to remount / read/write:
mount -u /

and then edit it with vi:
vi /etc/fstab

Fix whatever's wrong, save (escape colon x), then do a ctrl-D to exit the shell and continue booting.

[hrsetrdr]

mount -u / returned OK, but vi /etc/fstab returns as vi: not found, which is consistent with everything else I've tried; reboot seems to work though. I can cdls the contents, but don't seem to have the means to edit anything.

Edit: I can cat fstab but can't use an editor...kinda frustrating.

[wblock@]

Sorry, vi is in /usr/bin, so might as well mount everything. For that matter, you can use whatever editor you like:
cat /etc/fstab
Then mount /var and /usr based on what it shows. I mount /tmp, too, in case it's needed.
Finally, you can edit fstab and fix whatever might be wrong.

In a really bad situation, you can use echo to rewrite fstab, but it's not fun.

[SirDice]

Default way to solve this. Hit enter to load the default shell, then:

fsck -y
mount -u /
mount -a -t ufs
swapon -a

You can now use what ever editor you like. You probably made a typo in /etc/fstab somewhere.